Mantis update: mantis rampage!
Ceiling can taste freedom.
Booie, the littlest and, frankly, weediest of our latest mantis army, died quietly in the night a few days ago. In accordance with mantis tradition, his body was devoured by crickets.
In what’s becoming an Alcott family tradition, the death of the weakest mantis is a signal that the others’ days are numbered, and the survivors should be released into the wild, where they might mate and create another mantis army to menace the insects of tomorrow. The liberation ceremony for Ceiling and Snacks was held this morning on our front porch.
Pick me up! Pick me up! shouts Ceiling from the depths of the carrier she shares with Giant Black African Millipede.
Snacks, out in the open air, taking his first look at the big, wide world, where, theoretically anyway, there are many insects for him to devour.
Meanwhile Ceiling, getting a whiff of the liberty that is the divine right of all mantids, tries to climb the sheer plexiglass walls of her enclosure.
“What is this strange thing I’m perched upon?” asks Snacks — his first encounter with Nature. Shortly after this photo was taken, Kit (5) asked if she could try to pick him up one last time, or “do you think he’s wild already?”
Out of her enclosure and a little spooked by the wide open spaces, Ceiling goes into a defensive “put up your dukes” pose. Note the super-aggressive “scorpion tail.”
The crickets did not miss out — predator and prey each gained their freedom on this day.
Ceiling, still asking for trouble, crouches on Sam’s hand and, like Sean Penn, dares the photographer to approach — for a fist full of knuckles.
Once on a leaf, Ceiling visibly relaxes. “I could get used to this,” says the enormous, voracious, meat-eating predator. Crickets of Santa Monica. YOU ARE DOOMED.
your mantis posts really makes me want to have some…
Godspeed Devouring Mantis Army! Godspeed!
I love these posts.
*Currently smiling broadly at his computer screen*